THE DIMMER VIEW...canned chess curriculum
THE DIMMER VIEW
When I was young I was news editor and managing editor of two weekly newpapers. The publisher of the Lemon Grove Review and the Spring Valley Bulletin was named Max Goodwin who wrote a column for his papers called "The Dimmer View" and he expressed a lot of non-optimistic Republican ideas in sharp contrast to my liberal ideas which never saw print as my job was news, not opinion. Of course nowadays opinion or at the very minimum highly biased reporting masquerades as news. Not so back in the 60's. I ran those papers for four years and did a darn good job for old Max. but after those four years I got out of journalism and into law enforcement because it was less stressful, believe it or not.
So I thought, in tribute to the man who had the guts to hire an 18 year old journalism student to run his newspapers, I should call my blogs "the Dimmer View" as I seem to offer mostly critical opinions and maybe not so optimstic, but I guess that comes with age, and I am about 70 now.
And I guess my last few blogs have been critical pieces, so it all fits the title. I'll try not to be whiney, but when I think I might have a beef with somebody, something, or just life in general, I'll offer it here and hopefully it will amuse if not cause the reader to think.
In my most recent blog I attacked the notion that those in charge (aka "they" or "them") try to teach us stuff we most of us don't need to know, like how to mate when you have a king, bishop and knight. I have only faced this dilemna once in over 10,000 games and yet I have had three chess coaches who consider it mandatory learning and a "basic" checkmate...it's like a refresher course in finger bowl ettiquette for your children before taking them to taco bell. Comments supported my position that nobody needs it often enough to learn it unless they are going to play at a pretty high level. My aspiration is a rating of 1500 before I die. If I make 1490's and then die and I have taken more than one draw with bishop and knight, please somebody say "I told you so" before they light the pyre.
Renate's comment suggested Jeremy Silman, who helped Yasser Serawan write some great books, supports my notion. Thank you Renate and Jeremy and those others who reported they have also really only tried the KBN once in their lifetime of chess.
NEW CHESS COACH AUDITION
I am auditioning a new chess coach, who seems to be teaching from a canned curriculum aimed at young brains who are destined to be grandmasters. That ain't me. Teach me something I can use now.
Recently he assigned me the KBN and the KBB drills as homework. I've learned the KBN twice before but my brain, like a 10 MB hard drive, has limited space and the more I add to it, the more I forget as it erases files that don't get accessed, like the KBN mating technique. I played around with the KBB, a much simpler task, and enjoyed it enough to learn it. I've NEVER used it in a game, but I might be able to access it if I need to.
Now the real critique I have of this canned course is how the openings are taught. I only use a few openings and I have chosen my repertoire with some key objectives in mind.
1) get my opponent out of his book as soon as possible then play chess with chances that our chess abilities will decide the winner and not one player or the other having a deeper knowledge of a particular opening. I learned this concept in the late 70's from NM Michael Nagaran, who was just an expert at the time if I recall correctly.
2) If the name doesn't include the word "gambit" then I'm not interested in playing it much less learning it. I play chess for fun, not for money, medals, or prestige The fun comes from tactics, and gambits are rich in tactical opportunities.
3) The lines I choose have to be difficult for my opponent to transition back to some boring continuation.
SORRY JOE...
My very first USCF win came over Joe Saffiote, a 1400+ player, who played the Sicilian every time against e4 (or PK4) as we referred to it then. For a week I studied the Scheveningen Sicilian and had it figured out to a depth of 17 moves, ready to pounce on poor Joe. Sure enough, it was on about move 15 that he went astray and I took the advantage and rode it home for the win. I didn't need to know the best lines, just which ones were bad and could take me to a win if employed by the unwary opponent.
In going deeper into one of my favorite openings, the chess coach, a FIDE IM, was only able to address the lines where the opposition made the best replies, which players at my level and even a little better than I am rarely do for more than a few moves. So I learned how to beat a booked up opponent but not the average Joe I play against.
The dimmer view is of how chess is taught to old brains that are just looking to get to be a C player, not a grandmaster. Come on coaches, figure out how to teach me something more useful.
To be honest, my failing vision makes it virtually impossible to learn from books any more and even most websites are a challenge for the visually impaired so if I am to ever see 1500, I will have to rely on a coach. And that concept is one of which I have a Dimmer View.
